Promises
by L.M. Griffin
Summary: A good five generations after CotBP, Jack's been using the curse to live forever... and has a bit of trouble convincing the youngest Turner to help. (Crossover? Oyesh.)
1. Buggered Nine Ways Till Sunday

Series: Promises  
  
Authors: L.M. Griffin and KnitMeAPony  
  
Email: wren@knitmeapony.com or laurie@knitmeapony.com  
  
Rating: Today R, tomorrow the world! BWAHAH...ah... ahem.  
  
Pairing: Jack/William (not THAT one!), Jack/Norrington strongly implied  
  
Distribution: List archives. Everyone else please ask!  
  
Disclaimer: Laurie is a law student and knows these things won't help a damnbit, but should we get sued we're going for Fair Use and Parody.  
  
Series Summary: A good five generations after CotBP. Jack's been using the curse to live forever... and has a bit of trouble convincing the youngest Turner to help.  
  
Feedback: Yesh. Laurie says: "especially about anachronisms... that's where I'm weak!"  
  
Author's notes: This is a crossover. It's a surprise with what, but the  
  
'William' and 'British' bits should tip you off. We'll be a bit more  
  
forward with the facts in future parts.  
  
Prologue One - "Buggered Nine Ways Til Sunday."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
London - 1899  
  
Y'know, those who tell you you have 'all the time in the world', are a ruddy bunch of liars. Seriously. I mean, here I am, ready to break the curse that's been trailing me since before the American Revolution, once and for all, and what happens? I end up in England, in front of the last Turner.  
  
No, let me rephrase that better to my liking. In front of the last -dead- Turner. As in he's six feet under and I'm buggered nine ways till Sunday. I'd be surprised by my lack of luck, but really, it's just another day in the life of -Captain- Jack Sparrow.  
  
I sigh, scratching my head a little as I stare at the plain gravestone which are with etched the simple dates and the words -Beloved Son and Poet-. Well, guess the lad'll be famous now. All them poets are much more famous after they're long dead. It doesn't do me a bit of good, but I'd like to think the family I've haunted for nigh seven generations would get a bit more fame than just, 'Y'know, those blokes who made money off of ships and have strange ideas about legendary pirates'. A poet laureate. Hm. I like that. The great-great-great-great-greaaaat grandson of dear William Jr. and Elizabeth, to the likes of Shakespeare and old Byron.   
  
I smile sadly, then fiddle around with my hair for a moment, pulling out one of the many beads still braided in the dark locks. Then I put it atop the gravestone. "Sorry I never got t'meet you, lad. I'm sure you were a pride to th'name."  
  
I pat the gravestone once, and then amble out of the family graveyard, heaving out a sigh up into the peasoup thick fog of London proper. Times have changed - London isn't the ransack bunch of wooden buildings and the like when I was a raggedly child-man running around the Thames docks. No, now it's what they call a 'metropolis', a place to meet and be. It's the height of English-everything, from every cobblestone street and hight'do building. I must admit I like the new Royal palace a sight more than the old one, but otherwise I miss the tumbleturviness of old London.  
  
I miss a lot of things, I find. Not the taste of food, or warm company - rum is always excluded because of course I miss the sweet taste of it rolling down my throat. What I miss now is the people I knew, in a world where 'morality' meant less than honor and friendship, and what was important was what a man knew himself to be, not what his bank account was. I scowl at a group of top-hatted bankers walking down the way with their umbrellas and fancy sachels, and I curse them under my breath for taking away what used to make this Empire great - its heart. It's all ruddy stone and fianances, these days.   
  
I hate the modern world. I truly do.  
  
I find myself, as I often have in the years passing, wandering into London's Maritime Musuem. I know he'll be waiting for me, in that cosy little corner of his with all his effects nicely laid out for the world to see. I get a few askance glances - the strange man in his mid-thirties with his long hair and odd looking hat, despite his modern clothing, but those who recognize the tri-corned hat for what it is smile. They know an old sea salt, no matter what the age. I flash those wise souls a golden-toothed smile, as I saunter through the long and dusty passages, until I reach the modestly large room dedicated to the memory of the Great Pirate Hunter, Admiral James L. Norrington.  
  
I run my fingers lightly atop the glass case in which rests his old hat, his eyeglass, and some of his other personal items. He was buried with his sword - Gillette and I made sure of that - but they have his pistol in there, the silver gleaming in the late afternoon light. I keep moving around the room until I find the wooden chair, and seat myself in front of the portrait. It's one of the few in existence that's out on the market - I should know. I own the rest.  
  
I like visiting this portrait, though. It reminds me of the man in his entirity - newly minted Commodore. Just like the day I met him, those fierce green eyes and that firm jaw. The aqualine structure of his face, and the way he always held himself upright. All captured in oils and paints, for all those Naval history fanatics. And myself. I sigh, folding golden hands together as I look up to him. "Well, I screwed it all up again, Jamie."  
  
He looks down at me, and I can almost see that invisible lift of the eyebrows that asks the question without words. I tilt back my hat, sighing. "I got caught up with the rum 'gain ... and I missed the window. Now the Turners are all dead and gone, and I think I'm stuck like this."  
  
In my mindseye, I can see him crossing his arms at me, that one eyebrow holding above. I glare at him. "Alright, alright ... I know I promised I'd live forever, but y'don't know how hard it is, Jamie. I didn't think I'd miss it all so much - the just plain breathin', eatin' breakfast. Drinking, heh, rum." I flex my fingers, and sigh. "...Missin' Will. Missin' Elizabeth, Anamaria, old Gibbs and Cotton." I look again to him. "...Missin' you. God, Jamie. I ache for you.."  
  
Are those his ghostly fingertips running along my cheek? Probably, or this old mind playing tricks on me. I lean a little into the touch that I know isn't there, for even imaginary touch is better than none. "Oh love ...I want to come home t'you. I just don't know how."  
  
I can hear his voice, that dry, gentle influxation of tones, murmuring in my ear. 'You'll find a way. After all, aren't you the great -Captain Jack Sparrow-?'  
  
"Yes, well .. how can I end a curse with no blood to counter it?" I mutter to myself, scrubbing my hands over my face. "I'd need some sort of mojo-y magic I don't ex'ctly comin' out of m'fingertips, savvy?"  
  
Then of course, it sort of hits me over the head, like one of his 'Well isn't it obvious?' looks. If I don't have the magic, someone else is bound to. Now where have I got contacts that would deal with magic that old...   
  
Ah-hah. I smile a little, looking up at him. "You were always the most clever bugger - even when you weren't breathin'. Singapore. Why didn't I think of it b'fore -- and none of that lip, Commodore Norrington. I still know all your most ticklish spots."  
  
The mental smirk that returns to me makes me all the more eager to get going. The sooner I can end this curse, the closer I'll be to Jamie and Paradise. It seems funny, if you really think about it. Me - the great Jack Sparrow - running off to meet his maker so he can be snipped at in the hereafter by a snarky British Royal Naval officer.  
  
Trust me, at this point there is nowhere else I would rather be.   
  
I'm sure all my old mates would look at me askance, wondering when I started a love affair that was doomed to late nights and secrets for the rest of my days. I would have to tell them, I had just gone innocently looking for a map.  
  
All right, so it was in Norrington's office, and I was getting it in the middle of the night. I was still feeling pretty innocent about it, after all. I mean, it wasn't like it was gold or anything. Just a map. Where the Naval ships would be. That sort of thing. Nothing worth getting in a hissy fit over, in my opinion. Of course, I didn't exactly expect anyone there to give me a hissy fit over it.  
  
I should have known better. I should have known that Norrington was a man who worked late hours, ridiculously late ones. Nearly gave myself a heartattack when I popped through the window and found him sleeping over his desk, wig off so that his dark hair tumbled loose over his shoulders. I stared at him for a long moment, choking back the sudden hysterical laugh that nearly errupted my throat out of panic. He was a different man when he was sleeping - like all the exhaustion had taken the fight out of him and there was a peaceful young man, with fine lines of a face, and such warm, inviting looking lips, half-parted...  
  
I'm a thief of the sea, you know. It's natural for us to steal things. When else would I have the opportunity to brag that I stole a kiss from Commodore Norrington, the scourge of pirates everywhere? Not to mention those lips ... they begged for it. Really. Just one little kiss, they seemed to cry to me. Just one little kiss, and we'll be happy. You want to make us happy, don't you Jack?   
  
Who was I to deny such eloquent lips what they asked for? So with half-mischief and half-lustful intentions, I crept forward, nearly on tip-toes as I leaned over him. Gentle, like, I pushed some of his hair aside, and he stirred. I paused, waiting for a breathless moment to see if he moved again, and when he didn't, I leaned over and kissed him. Chaste one - I swear it. Didn't even use a bit of the 'french-tongue'.  
  
Then with a little smirk, I moved towards the maps table, fingers creeping over the rolls of parchment. Quiet as a mouse, I was. Quiet enough to hear the hammer pulling back on the pistol behind me, and spin to face a very awake Commodore, green eyes flashing in the dim light. We stared at each other for a long moment, before he spoke, those precise clipped tones I grew to adore, for I knew the passion repressed behind them. "You kissed me."  
  
My mind worked around that statement, before I shrugged, and smiled. "Aye, I did." Wasn't any harm in admitting it. I was, and still am, a pirate. We do what we like, which means we kiss who we like.  
  
His expression stretched thin for a moment, and he came around the desk, eyes fixed on mine. I was caught by the color - I often am. Colors and pretty shiny things always attract me, and the Commodore was both, with those green eyes that flashed like emerald fire and the dusky rose of his still kissable lips, and the tossed chocolate-brown locks of hair that fell over those eyes and that delicious mouth. He lifted his chin a little, that fine sharp chin. "Why?"  
  
Seemed a bit of an odd question for a Commodore to ask a pirate breaking into his office, but he wasn't shooting and I wasn't in the mood to get shot for talking sass. I shrugged, flashed him another grin. "Because, mate, you look like a man who could use a good kiss."  
  
"You call that a good kiss, Sparrow?" he asked dryly, one eyebrow raised. "I've gotten more passionate kisses from my dogs."  
  
"I wasn't about t'inquire on the personal relationships of your Commodore-ness, but trust me, mate, if it's a real kiss you're looking for, I can more than make up for my lack of enthusiasm." I said, letting it roll out in a slow purr. What the hell, another kiss wouldn't hurt me none.   
  
He looked at me for a long, unreadable moment, before clicking down the hammer of the pistol, turning away from me to his desk. "Get out of here, Sparrow. I am too tired to deal with your games." He rubbed his face, from tiredness or just plain weariness with the world.  
  
I watched him, reading the lines of his body. They spoke of too many hours of work and too little of anything else. He looked thinner, more strained and ... more lonely, too. My mouth pressed together in a thin line. "Oi, mate. How long have you been workin' like this? Alone and the like? It ain't good for you. You need t'get outside - get some fresh air. Not to mention some food."  
  
"Thank you for your concern. It is duly noted that a pirate is worrying about a man who will most likely hang him." He said dryly, moving to sit behind his desk. He put the pistol beside him, and went to pick up his quill.  
  
I watched him, silently, a little curl of thought working through my brain, before I took a few steps forward. "There are easier ways t'kill yourself, mate. Most of them involve that pistol there."  
  
He looked up at me sharply then, those eyes blazing with anger, and a little bit of fear. Fear that I had hit on the mark he so sorely was trying to deny himself, yet kept inching towards moment by moment. Night by night. His hand clenched around the quill. "Get Out. You got what you came for, so Get Out."  
  
Oh, now that was a challenge just begging to be taken, right there. Lord knows I can never resist a challenge, and right now I couldn't resist him. So tragically angry and angst-ridden. Those lips were calling to me again, thinned in that flushed face. I moved towards him, swaggering a little as was my way, my voice coming out as a soft whisper. "Oh, but Commodore ... I haven't gotten what I wanted at all. After all, I want to know I kiss better than your dogs."  
  
He didn't expect it, so I am fairly sure that is why I didn't get shot for wrapping my arms around his shoulders and pressing my mouth over his. He needed this. Hell, I needed this. I couldn't let my greatest adversary slip away. He was the ying to my bloody yang, and I couldn't keep going if he wasn't going to be there to try and make me stop. This should get him going. He'd get out of this office and chase me..and I wanted him to chase after me. Chase me to the ends of the world so I could sneak another kiss from these lips, so suddenly stilled beneath mine.  
  
I don't know what I was expecting to happen afterwards. Probably him bellowing and me running away from the marines. Or maybe something inside of me knew, and I was just following the instinct. I'll never know - because when he started to kiss me back - I lost all comprehension. The only thing I could think of was when his lips came to life and he pulled me into his strong, strong arms was, 'Oh fuck, this is damned good, isnae it?'  
  
That kiss wasn't chaste. The next one wasn't either. I know that the rest were right damned near Biblical. We kissed until we had no more breath and the sky started to turn light. When those strong arms finally let me go, I knew that I'd be back in them. After all, now I wanted to know how they would look bare and naked against my bedsheets...  
  
Mm. Memories are tricky like that. I'm mere blocks from where I've tied up my ship, standing at a street corner and grinning stupidly at the thought of that night. No wonder people me think half-mad. I spend most of my time living in my thoughts and memories.  
  
That's where Jamie is, though. Where he is, is where I want to be. So it is off to the Far East I sail, to once more seek treasure unknown, for adventure I have yet to see. My smile sharpens, feylike, as I cross the busy street, singing softly. ".. really bad eggs. Drink up, m'hearties. Yo ho." 


	2. He Never Came, Y'know

Series: Promises  
  
Authors: L.M. Griffin and KnitMeAPony  
  
Email: wren@knitmeapony.com or laurie@knitmeapony.com  
  
Rating: Today R, tomorrow the world! BWAHAH...ah... ahem.  
  
Pairing: Jack/William (not THAT one!), Jack/Norrington strongly implied  
  
Distribution: List archives. Everyone else please ask!  
  
Disclaimer: Laurie is a law student and knows these things won't help a damnbit, but should we get sued we're going for Fair Use and Parody.  
  
Series Summary: A good five generations after CotBP. Jack's been using the curse to live forever... and has a bit of trouble convincing the youngest Turner to help.  
  
Feedback: Yesh. Laurie says: "especially about anachronisms... that's where I'm weak!"  
  
Author's notes: This is a crossover. It's a surprise with what, but the  
  
'William' and 'British' bits should tip you off. We'll be a bit more  
  
forward with the facts in future parts.  
  
Prologue Two - 'He Never Came, Y'know.'  
  
--------------  
  
-London, 1864-  
  
He ran through the streets, cutting a fine, lithe figure in his breeches and jacket. At thirteen, William James Turner the Fourth was as fine a figure of an Englishman as any of his family. His waves of gold-brown hair refused to stay tied back; his thin limbs and the pale skin told the tale of a life lived indoors, gone smooth as china instead of pasty and damp like so many of his countrymen. He slipped between two carts and near caused an accident, skidding back onto the sidewalk and pausing to catch a breath.  
  
"Is it true, father?"  
  
He knew better than to interrupt his father at work, but there he was at the door of the office. He'd walked all the way here, on his own, and he was certain he'd be in trouble when he got home. At least he'd left word, this time -- perhaps he'd only get scolded. His father lifted his eyes from his work, fixed them on his son accusingly, and waited.  
  
"Is it?" The boy took a step through the door, firelight flickering over his hair and eyes too bright for mere excitement. It softened his father's expression, a bit - his youngest boy was prone to illness, so he gestured him over to press a careful hand to his forehead, another to his wrist.  
  
"Is what true, Will?" Warm. The boy was over warm and had probably run all the way there. He simply refused to take care of himself, it seemed, and dashing about without his mother certainly didn't help. He examined the age-worn book his son held out, with a half-smile on his face. Ah.  
  
"The book you gave me this morning. About... is it great-great grandfather? And his son? Were they really pirates, father?"  
  
"Aye." He smoothed back his son's hair and stood, pulling on his coat. "Come, Will. I'll tell you about it as I walk you home." He took his hand, and as they went through the crowded London streets, he answered a hundred curious questions about very familiar names. Bootstrap Bill, and where that name came from. The first Master William Turner, and how he made the small fortune the family still stood on. Captain Jack Sparrow, and the -Black Pearl-. and how they still came back.  
  
"He's still alive? How? He must be a hundred years old!"  
  
"Aye, he is at that. More to a hundred and sixty, now. But he uses thecurse of the Aztec gold and Turner blood. He looks perhaps forty today. You see, he'll spend a year as a man, now and then, living a life I'm told is most debauched and against all hopes of heaven." His lips twitched, though he kept his expression carefully schooled disapproving. "And then he'll return to that hidden island, steal a bit of gold from the chest. He'lllive as a cursed man until he comes to take a Turner back to the isle." He opens the gate and sees his son inside. "Cursed for a fortnight, if a year is a day."  
  
Every fourteen years. He saw his son do the hasty, simple math in his head. "When was he last here? Did you go with him?"  
  
A nod. "He returned me home the day before your birth." He leaned on the gatepost, patiently.  
  
"I'll be fourteen next month." He watched his son muse it over. Captain Jack Sparrow, -here-, and just in time for his birthday. And perhaps... "Father? Which Turner will he take? There's you and I here, now..."  
  
"I couldn't leave your mother without an income for six months, now could I?" A thrill danced up the boy's spine, and he held the book close, like a precious thing. "But he won't be able to take you on a journey if you're ill. Go see your mother and let her take care of you lest your fever come back." Will deflated, slightly, and sighed. "And we'll talk about your behavior when I get home."  
  
---------------------------------------------------------  
  
-Somewhere in the Pacific, 1898-  
  
He never came, y'know.  
  
I don't normally take time out of my busy schedule to brood, but as I'm literally on a slow boat to China, I suppose I can bothered, just this once. I lean on the rail and thoughtfully stare out onto the water. Moonlight's pretty, but I've had enough of it. It's the firelight from the torches that really fascinates me.  
  
Fire's -nice-, y'see. It's pain and clean and terrible, and y'can't tear your eyes away from it.  
  
But I've digressed. I was broodin'.  
  
When I was fourteen, my father told me a fantastic story. He said there was a family secret -- that six generations ago, the Turner family men were pirates. Yes, I know, it's all very cliche to claim pirates in the family, but I believed him. Two generations of Turner men sailed on the -Black Pearl- with the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow.  
  
Here's where it gets mad.  
  
So did the next three generations.  
  
There was a curse, y'see, that made men immortal with god awful side effects -- no way to satiate eternal hunger, thirst, lust. Y'think being a vampire is bad? It's the vampire times ten, I'm thinking. Times a thousand. Jack Sparrow did it to himself on purpose. Something about a promise, something about living forever. I don't remember exactly.  
  
A life like that, even an eternal one, is empty. Void of everything that'd make eternity worth it. So every fourteen years, so the story's told, Jack Sparrow indulged in the cure for his curse and lived a year or two in glorious debauchery. The cure of course being the blood of Turner men. He'd kidnap the oldest living son, sweep them off to a cursed island in the Caribbean, take a nip of blood and give them a year's adventure in return.  
  
I was the eldest son and thirteen when I heard all this. I believed every word of it, foolish, naive idiot that I was.  
  
So I waited. I turned fourteen. He didn't come.  
  
I turned sixteen, and my father died, and I threw the book away. He didn't come.  
  
I turned eighteen. I met Cecily, and my whole world changed. He didn't come.  
  
I was almost twenty-two, and suddenly a dark-haired stranger entered my life.  
  
Not Jack Sparrow. He's a fairytale. Angelus? He's not. He's a legend, and he took me from William Turner to William the Bloody. Entirely different curse than the one I'd been hoping for. More's the pity, too.  
  
There's no cure for this one.  
  
I light a cigarette and toss the match out into the water. It gets sucked under in the middle of a puddle of light. Some kind of metaphor, that. I dunno. I've stopped writing, stopped payin' attention to such things. Angelus... not a reader. And what he doesn't do... I don't do. Just the way things are now.  
  
Would my life be different if he'd come? Maybe I would have stopped chasing fairy tales if I'd met a real one. Maybe Cecily couldn't have touched me. Maybe pain would be different. Maybe Dru never would have seen me. Dunno.  
  
Maybe it would have all been the same.  
  
No use cryin' over spilled blood, right?  
  
Yeah. No use. 


End file.
